{"id":62025,"date":"2014-10-13T10:49:57","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T14:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=62025"},"modified":"2019-06-24T12:17:17","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T16:17:17","slug":"monkey-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/monkey-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Monkey Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a little girl, Laurell Shaffer, \u201906, dreamed of being a Rockette. She grew up taking dance classes and performing her craft in various recitals. However, her career path twirled her in a much different direction. So, instead of doing high kicks at Radio City, she\u2019s taken to the stage of high tech.<\/p>\n

As an enterprise customer success manager for the world\u2019s most popular online survey software, Survey Monkey<\/a>, Shaffer spends her days making sure the company\u2019s largest customer organizations are set up on the system, and, ultimately, successful.<\/p>\n

Shaffer earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in hospitality management<\/a> and began her career with a position at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tenn. A few years later, she received an opportunity with Hyatt in San Francisco, and made the cross-country move.<\/p>\n

While living in the City by the Bay, Shaffer became fascinated by the start-up world and technology, and found a company called Eventbrite, which combined what she knew about events from working in hotels with technology, and she made the switch.<\/p>\n

When deciding to move to Portland, Ore., with her now fianc\u00e9 about four years later, she was able to easily transition to Survey Monkey since Eventbrite has a partnership with the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it really exciting,\u201d she explains. \u201cOne of the reasons I got away from hotels and moved into technology was because I found that the hotel industry gets to be really stagnant. I refer to it as the \u2018good old boys club.\u2019 And, this is absolutely the opposite. When you\u2019re in a young, small company, you have access to leadership, you have access to tools, you\u2019re growing much faster, and everything is quicker. A lot of times, processes aren\u2019t defined and you\u2019re defining them on your own, which I really enjoy. There\u2019s not a lot of red tape. You can make what you want out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Survey Monkey serves customers of every field, including higher education, corporations, government agencies, magazines and professional sports teams, among others.<\/p>\n

It also has an incentive program, called Contribute, where people can register to take surveys, and, for each survey that\u2019s taken, the company donates 50 cents to a charity of the survey respondent\u2019s choosing. So, Shaffer finds herself not only helping her customers set up their surveys, but also taking many surveys in her own personal time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, when I take surveys, I\u2019m more inclined to find out if they\u2019re using Survey Monkey and, if they\u2019re not, finding out who the competitor is, why they\u2019re different than us and why that organization would be using them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Although her career path didn\u2019t lead her to a New York City stage, she feels like she made the leap into a job that\u2019s just the right fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love to interact with people,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that\u2019s the link from hospitality. I like the relationship-building aspect of the role. And, it\u2019s different every day. This is the most removed I can probably be from hospitality, but it\u2019s still a fun job!\u201d
\nA BARREL OF Q&A<\/strong>
\nQ. Favorite UCF memory?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. My first Spirit Splash [in fall 2002], because it\u2019s so unique and wildly fun.<\/p>\n

Q. Favorite UCF class?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. I had an event class that I really liked at the Rosen campus. There was a lot of hands-on stuff. [My professor] helped run the halftime shows and performances at the football games, so for one of our activities, we were able to go down to the field and participate, with headsets on and helping to coordinate things. I also participated in the Culture and Cuisine class (my junior year) that takes students to Paris in the spring, which was amazing. We met with chefs, and we tasted wine, and saw all these amazing sights. It was my first time in Europe.<\/p>\n

Q. Were you involved in any extracurricular activities at UCF?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. I [was in a] sorority for the first two years. I [also] was part of the Hospitality Association once I [went] down that path. I did a bunch of events, and a New York trip for certain members of the association to go to the restaurant show at the Javitz Center in New York.<\/p>\n

Q. What advice would you give to current UCF hospitality students?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. Take advantage of all the programs, because there are some really neat ones, and the classes are so unique. I\u2019ll talk about classes that I took in college, and I don\u2019t think other schools have anything like them. It is a really special program for hospitality. I don\u2019t think there are many out there that compete with it.<\/p>\n

Q. Last thing you Googled?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. Do I need an adapter for electronics in Thailand?<\/p>\n

Q. What TV show are you embarrassed to admit watching?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. \u201cSo You Think You Can Dance.\u201d It\u2019s not so much the show, but the level of obsession I have with it that gets embarrassing.<\/p>\n

Q. What do you do for fun?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. Volunteer, hike, cook, taste all of Portland\u2019s amazing food<\/p>\n

Q. If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A. Froyo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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